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EISENHOWER, Dwight D. Typed speechdraft WITH EXTENSIVE AUTOGRAPH EMENDATIONS IN EISENHOWER'S HAND, 19 May 1957. A Draft of the President's Address to the American People on the Need for Mutual Security in Waging the Peace, delivered on 21 May 1957. 24 pages, 4to WITH OVER 200 WORDS INTERLINED THROUGHOUT THE TEXT IN EISENHOWER'S HAND.
BUYING PEACE WITH FOREIGN AID: IKE MAKES THE CASE FOR MUTUAL SECURITY, CITING VIETNAM AND IRAN
A powerful and, in hindsight, tragically ironic draft of a major Presidential address to the nation. Eisenhower urges the American people to accept the costs of foreign aid as a necessary price for buying peace and "mutual security" in a dangerous world threatened by Communism. "To fail to carry on this program," he says in a holograph addition, "will vastly increase the risk of future war." Ike knew what he was talking about on the subject of war, and another addition spells out its terrible impact: "Indeed," he says, "with modern weapons, it is not at all certain that America, even though she might emerge the military victor in a war of today, could herself escape disastrous destruction of her cities, industries and uncounted number of lives." Taxpayers in the American heartland might be baffled and angry at why their money had to go to distant countries. But Eisenhower explains that small amounts of foreign aid can buy friendship and thus security, and avoid the billions of dollars wasted on warfare. Foreign aid, he says, would be "the merest fraction of the cost of war."
History had some nasty surprises awaiting Eisenhower's wise and sensible suggestions. Two of the countries he cites as major examples of the benefits of foreign aid were Vietnam and Iran: "The republic of Vietnam is today one of the countries where we spend the largest amounts of so-called 'foreign aid,'" he says. "We spend it there because, as our two countries help each other, we peacefully avoid what very recently threatened to be a major disaster," that is the victory of the Communist Vietcong. Such a disaster, Ike says, "might have involved us again in having to fight in Asia to protect our vital National interests." Tragically, America ended up fighting in Vietnam anyway, from 1965 to 1973.
He then boasts of America's "brilliant success" in Iran, which "is today a staunch member of the free world, whereas four years ago it had practically fallen to the Communists." In 1953 the U. S. helped restore the Shah to power after a coup--a fateful act that triggered a bitter, festering anti-Americanism in the minds of Iranians that bore terrible fruit in 1979. "A tremendous success was gained when the people of Iran, under the courageous leadership of the Shah, asserted their independence. They needed and obtained indispensable help from us. I think you will agree that it is hard to quarrel with victory..."
BUYING PEACE WITH FOREIGN AID: IKE MAKES THE CASE FOR MUTUAL SECURITY, CITING VIETNAM AND IRAN
A powerful and, in hindsight, tragically ironic draft of a major Presidential address to the nation. Eisenhower urges the American people to accept the costs of foreign aid as a necessary price for buying peace and "mutual security" in a dangerous world threatened by Communism. "To fail to carry on this program," he says in a holograph addition, "will vastly increase the risk of future war." Ike knew what he was talking about on the subject of war, and another addition spells out its terrible impact: "Indeed," he says, "with modern weapons, it is not at all certain that America, even though she might emerge the military victor in a war of today, could herself escape disastrous destruction of her cities, industries and uncounted number of lives." Taxpayers in the American heartland might be baffled and angry at why their money had to go to distant countries. But Eisenhower explains that small amounts of foreign aid can buy friendship and thus security, and avoid the billions of dollars wasted on warfare. Foreign aid, he says, would be "the merest fraction of the cost of war."
History had some nasty surprises awaiting Eisenhower's wise and sensible suggestions. Two of the countries he cites as major examples of the benefits of foreign aid were Vietnam and Iran: "The republic of Vietnam is today one of the countries where we spend the largest amounts of so-called 'foreign aid,'" he says. "We spend it there because, as our two countries help each other, we peacefully avoid what very recently threatened to be a major disaster," that is the victory of the Communist Vietcong. Such a disaster, Ike says, "might have involved us again in having to fight in Asia to protect our vital National interests." Tragically, America ended up fighting in Vietnam anyway, from 1965 to 1973.
He then boasts of America's "brilliant success" in Iran, which "is today a staunch member of the free world, whereas four years ago it had practically fallen to the Communists." In 1953 the U. S. helped restore the Shah to power after a coup--a fateful act that triggered a bitter, festering anti-Americanism in the minds of Iranians that bore terrible fruit in 1979. "A tremendous success was gained when the people of Iran, under the courageous leadership of the Shah, asserted their independence. They needed and obtained indispensable help from us. I think you will agree that it is hard to quarrel with victory..."